


Feel Your Heart (Hanging In the Air, Counting Steps and Stairs)

by SecretEnigma



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bahamut (Final Fantasy XV) Being a Jerk, Canonical Character Death, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Good Parent Regis Lucis Caelum, I Tried, Lunoct Valentine Weekend 2021, Near Death Experiences, Post-Canon, This Isn't Nearly As Shippy As I Wanted, Why Did I Write This?, but eh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-19 06:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29746458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecretEnigma/pseuds/SecretEnigma
Summary: For Lunoct Weekend 2021. Prompts used: First Sunrise/Holding HandsHe walked tall to his fate, he sat strong on the throne. He fell into the darkness to bring back the dawn.But not everyone is content with that ending, and they are willing to fight to change it, so long as Noctis is willing to get up and keep walking toward the sound of his Oracle's voice.
Relationships: Aera Mirus Fleuret/Ardyn Izunia, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 16
Kudos: 84
Collections: Lunoct Valentine Weekend 2021





	Feel Your Heart (Hanging In the Air, Counting Steps and Stairs)

**Author's Note:**

> My second contribution to Lunoct Valentine Weekend! And also my last. I just- couldn't get the muses to give me a third thing in time. Honestly this is also not nearly as romantic/shippy as I wanted it to be but I still enjoyed writing it. So.

“-tis! Noctis! **Noctis**!” Someone calling him.

Luna? Was that Luna’s voice? It … sounded like it. It sounded like her.

He was so very tired, but her voice mattered, **she** mattered, and so he tried to find her, to pull himself out of the endless abyss that did its best to tug him down into numbness. Gold light reached for him, and it reminded him of her magic, of her hair, and he fought harder to reach it. Hands closed around his somewhere in between the abyss and the light and he held on as tightly as he could, _Luna!_ He tried to shout it, but he wasn’t sure if he could make a sound, if his voice worked or if his lungs breathed.

Hadn’t he died? He remembered- he thought he’d-. The throne room. The prophecy. The sacrifice. And Luna had died before that, hadn’t she? Gladio had said that her body had been taken away by Gentiana, the two of them disappearing into the air without so much as a goodbye.

He was dying then. But Luna was waiting for him, and that made it okay, so he still followed the pull, still clung tight to those smaller hands as they helped him up and up and up. But it was hard, and it got harder the higher he went. He hadn’t thought dying was supposed to be hard, but soon just holding onto the hands of light was exhausting.He wanted to go to Luna, but he was so tired, had been tired before starting this. Couldn’t he just … take a short break?

His grip loosened without meaning to, and even though he could still hear her calling for him, he was too exhausted to tighten his grip and start climbing his way up again. He just wanted to stay still for a minute, but as soon as he stopped, he started to drift back down into the numb and the grey. His fingers slipped loose from hers and clutched at nothingness instead, and the sound of Luna’s voice grew desperate, “Noctis, please! Noctis, you have keep fighting! Noctis!”

Luna sounded far away.

_But didn’t I already do all my fighting? Isn’t it over? I did everything I could. I walked tall… Luna please, why can’t I just rest for a moment?_

He tried to catch her hands again but instead fell back, into the abyss and then further, down, down and…

“Hey.”

Noctis blinked. He was sitting the base of a tower of rubble. It was Insomnia, his home in ruins and the last dregs of fire as the sky glowed with a carpet of stars and thin trails of smoke curled through the air over the empty city. It was beautiful in an aching, broken sort of way. He blinked again and felt a back pressed against his, “You can’t stop here, Your Highness.”

“Why not?”

A dry laugh. He remembered that sound. From the Kingsglaive that had helped him train his warping once Dad’s health got too poor to do it. From the Ring and the flickering memories layered inside — _“I have seen what this brave soul is prepared to do-”, “Where do I sign?”_ —. Nyx rested the back of his head against Noctis’s, both of them exhausted and bloody and trembling from the aftermath of having the magic of the Lucii burn uncaringly through their veins, “You’re a good kid, Your Highness. You know better than to keep a lady like **that** waiting.”

Noctis studied the stars over their heads, he knew better than to look at Nyx. He wasn’t sure why he shouldn’t, but he knew he couldn’t turn around to look at the man who had taught him how to fling himself through the sky on will and steel and faith, “You … met Luna?”

An amused noise, the one Nyx made when he was trying not to laugh at something a Kingsglaive shouldn’t laugh at but wanted to, “Yeah. We met.” A sigh and the back against his disappeared. A hand lightly swatted his shoulder, pushing him to stand up, “Come on, you’ve kept Princess waiting long enough, and I have my orders.”

Noctis groaned, but let himself be pushed upright, “Orders? Who follows orders anymore? I’m dead. **You’re** dead.”

“Eh, half right.” He could **hear** the mischievous smile in Nyx’s voice and half started to turn despite knowing better. An ashen hand gripped his shoulder, stopping him from turning. For a moment they lingered like that, and the silence was welcoming. Understanding. Then Nyx pushed his shoulder, urging him onward, “Go on. You’ve got places to be, and here isn’t one of them.”

“Giving orders to your prince again?” Noctis teased softly as he took a weary first step up the shifting rubble, “Lib is going to mad at you.”

“He’s gonna be mad at me for a whole lot more than that,” Nyx chuckled behind him as the sky darkened, some of the stars fading in the east, not dawn, not even light, but the barest hint of its approach. Noctis climbed a little higher despite the weariness in his bones, toward the faint sound of Luna’s voice even though he wasn’t sure why dying apparently took so much effort. “Oh, one more thing.” Noctis paused, tilted his head toward Nyx’s voice without looking at him. There was a tug of fingers on his hair, fond and gentle despite Nyx having been at the base of the rubble a moment earlier. A puff of breath near his ear as the echo of the soldier’s laughter filled his bones like magic energy, like a boost to carry him upward.

“Rule well, Young King.”

The wind carried Nyx’s ashes away behind Noctis’s back as he took a breath and started climbing. The echo of those words carried him higher, up the rubble and toward the dark sky. He reached the top and paused, unsure where to go next, how to go higher when there was nothing left to climb.

“My sister is still **waiting**. How long do you intend to make her wait? Honestly.” Snipped a voice as a shadow suddenly grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the black of the night sky itself.

“Ravus?”

The shadow hesitated, Noctis could only barely make out the outline amid the blackness between the stars, “…You are not meant to be here yet.”

Noctis laughed dryly, “I’m **dead**. Pretty sure that was what you’ve wanted for years now. Where else would I belong?”

He couldn’t be sure, but he was pretty sure Ravus flinched. “…What the fool wants, is not always what should be granted.”

Noctis squinted at the space where he was fairly certain Ravus was, if only because that was where the hand holding his wrist seemed to be coming from, “Did you just call yourself a fool?”

A gruff snort and another tug upward, “We do not have time for questions. A brother might have the luxury of ignoring his sister for longer than he ought, but a fiancé does not.”

Noctis let himself be pulled upward, idly memorizing how it felt to drift **up** instead of drift down. He could faintly hear Luna calling somewhere above his head now. He wasn’t sure how far he had fallen between letting go of her hands and meeting Nyx, but it must have been much deeper than he thought for her to sound so far away, “Where are we going?”

“ **You** are going to where you belong; my sister’s side.”

There was a bitterness there, but it was duller than it had been in life, softer. Sadder. “Isn’t that where you belong too?”

“…One day. Perhaps. But my journey is not important right now, **your** journey is the one that matters.” A harsh tug, a pulse of energy that felt like old, faded memories of flower fields and days of happiness before the world had burned to a nightmare, “This is as far as I can take you. Go.”

Noctis paused, floating in the black as the sense of Ravus retreated, “Ravus.” The presence paused, and Noctis swallowed the apology he didn’t think the man would want, “Thank you.”

“Make her happy, and I will be content.” Then Ravus was gone, and Noctis had to rise on his own.

Luna’s voice grew steadily closer, yet it remained far away despite how long he had floated upward. He wasn’t sure how high he was supposed to go to reach where he’d been. He wasn’t even climbing anything now, just rising on sheer willpower, trying to find those hands that had first pulled him out of the abyss, trying to follow Luna’s voice. It was cold up here between the stars. And exhausting. If he stopped, he’d probably start falling again. Which … would be bad? Probably. But it was still tempting. Despite what Nyx and Ravus had said. He’d been fighting for so long…

“Tch. Tired again already?”

Noctis thought he should be alarmed at the calloused hand that settled on his head, but instead all he felt was a vague confusion, “…Ardyn?”

“Shh. The Old Dragon does not know I linger here.”

“…Are you here to kick me all the way back down?”

A flicker of red in the dark, something that felt like a sad smile even though Noctis couldn’t see it, “What would you do, Young King, if you were to awaken once more? Not dead, but breathing? Would you erase the last memories of the man who ruined your life and stole your love from you?”

Noctis reached up and wrapped his fingers around Ardyn’s too-thin wrist. Not trying to remove it, but … grounding them both in a way, connecting them in the darkness, “No.” His answer was sure and steady, unflinching.

“Oh?”

“You were the first Chosen King. A healer, a brother, a gentle soul. No matter what you became, you deserve to be remembered as that at least. I would have arranged a royal funeral. A **proper** one, deserving of a king and a healer.”

A laugh, low and almost indulgent, “How did I ever mistake you for Somnus?” The question must have been rhetorical, because he didn’t wait for an answer. The hand on his head pulled away, and a moment later, fabric dropped onto his hair instead. That ugly old hat Ardyn had worn every time they met, “Well. I am hardly the best guide for this leg of your journey, but it would seem that someone is late. I suppose I will have to do.”

A flicker of gold and a breath at Noctis’s back, a laugh that sounded so much like Luna’s it made his heart lurch, yet was also so startlingly unfamiliar he knew it couldn’t be her, “You say that like you didn’t all but run him over in your excitement to get here first.”

Another flicker of red, this one feeling like sheepish amusement and mischief even as Ardyn sniffed in mock dignity, “I am not one to leave my debts unpaid, even now.” A pause, and the wrist still clasped in Noctis’s hand turned so that fingers could close gently around his, “Especially now.”

Noctis felt warm hands on his back, and not one, but two rushes of energy wrap around him, “Who are you?”

“She is **my** Oracle,” Ardyn rumbled possessively, “and you have restored me to her. For that, it is only right I aid you in returning to yours. Now go. They’ve been doing a marvelous job keeping the Old Dragon distracted, but for this you will need to hurry before our disguise leaves you and you are no longer hidden from his sight.”

Old Dragon. Hidden. Distracted. Something niggled at his thoughts, a connection he wasn’t making even though it was obvious, but he had no time to think, because then he was being **pushed** , up and away so swiftly it was like a gust of wind had batted him upward like a leaf at midday. He barely heard Ardyn’s last call of, “Noctis. Thank you.”

A blink that lasted an eternity yet also no time at all, and Noctis left the darkness behind and found himself walking an upward pathway made of stars and galaxies. It made no sense, how quickly he could sometimes cover distance when other times he struggled to make it an inch. He couldn’t have fallen **this** far when he’d accidentally let go of Luna’s hands, and yet the climb up was taking so much longer than the fall down apparently had. Even then, there had been no sign of stars in the black earlier, and now they stretched as far as the eye could see. Spinning galaxies and nebulae and stars that all held the whispers of time and death and rebirth.

It was beautiful in a way, frustrating in another. He wanted to reach Luna already. To step out of this limbo and into the afterlife where she waited for him.

“You seem very convinced that you’re dying,” said the man walking beside him on the starlight path and Noctis felt his breath catch in his chest like a knife was there. He squeezed his eyes shut and calloused fingers took his hand in sympathy, “Don’t look,” his father whispered, “if you look, you won’t be able to continue.”

“Dad,” Noctis whispered hoarsely, “I … I missed you.” He opened his eyes and made himself focus on the stars, “You didn’t let me say goodbye.”

“I know. And I am sorry for that. It was … the one piece of selfishness I could not deny myself. Even though I knew it would hurt you. I am so sorry, Noctis.”

Noctis swallowed down the knot in his throat, “Will I be able to look at you soon? I mean… I can’t be that far from joining you now.” The silence lasted a long time, so long that he would have thought himself alone save for the calloused hand in his and the echo of footsteps beneath the rising volume of Luna’s call. “Dad?”

“I’ve made many mistakes,” his father admitted abruptly, “and one of the ones I will always regret most was when you were four years old. I asked how long it would be until the Chosen King had come, and I was told that the wait was over. I knew then, that you were the Chosen King, that you would die for the prophecy. They showed me what your fate was to be. And for many years, I accepted it. And for that, I can never apologize enough.”

Noctis frowned, unsure where the conversation was going as they meandered upward on the starlight path that was slowly, painstakingly turning into the pinks and reds of predawn, “It was necessary though. That the king should die for his people. I accepted that. I walked tall-.”

The hand in his squeezed so tight it hurt, “You did. You walked tall, my son, and I am **so proud of you**. But I am your father. I should have done more than bow my head and accept. I should have fought long before the Messenger appeared at your bedside.”

“…Messenger?”

Regis exhaled slowly, the sigh he gave when he was looking at painful memory, “When you were eight, the doctors weren’t sure if you would wake up. I stayed by your bedside the entire time, heedless of my duties. I was somewhere between being awake and dozing off from exhaustion when Gentiana appeared. She asked what I would sacrifice to save your life, both now and later, when the throne beckoned you.”

Noctis paused, barely kept himself from turning to look, “Dad?” He didn’t understand.

He could hear his father smiling, “Time is a far less ironclad boundary to High Messengers than it is to mortals. And though to me, you had never met the young future Oracle, to Gentiana the two of you had already known each other through pen and paper for a lifetime, and Luna was more than ready to fight for you, even against the word of the Draconian himself. I had not yet met her, but hearing her words given to me across time through a Messenger more loyal to a mortal woman than the Draconian, I could not help but choose to fight as well.”

Noctis felt his feet jerk to a true halt despite the sensation of Ardyn’s hat —his … protection? His disguise?— turning steadily to dust on his head, “I don’t under-.” Except he did. Suddenly, harshly, he **did**.

_“Go on. You’ve got places to be, and here isn’t one of them.”_

_“_ **_You_ ** _are going to where you belong; my sister’s side.”_

_“She is my Oracle, and you have restored me to her. For that, it is only right I aid you in returning to yours.”_

Hope flared so hot and bright in his chest it felt like actual fire, like a star lodged in his ribcage as he inhaled raggedly and gasped out, “Luna died. Luna **died** , in Altissia, Gladio saw-.”

“Gentiana took her and hid her away in the realm of the Glacian to heal her wounds and shield her from the Draconian’s gaze until the time was right.”

 _Luna’s alive._ ** _Luna’s alive_** _._ Noctis stared ahead of him, to the tiniest fingers of predawn that were higher up and before him, like a staircase, like a promise, “I’m- then I’m-.” He shuddered, feeling the last of Ardyn’s hat shred away and **something** in the abyss below start to rumble, “But even if I wake up, won’t Bahamut-.”

“That is my part to worry about.” Despite the situation, he could hear his dad **grinning** , almost mischievous, almost like the memories of young, reckless **Cor** that Noctis had seen in the Crystal, “I might not be able to fight him on even ground, but I have read enough stories to know that beings of his nature have two universal flaws. Arrogance, and a tendency to bind themselves to wagers they are certain they can win. If you escape here, Noctis, then you are free to go. He will not touch you or any of those you hold dear.”

“That sounds too easy.”

“The Draconian does not seek help from anyone. I do not believe he considered that **you** would not even need to ask in order to gain all the aid you needed to carry you where your strength alone could not.”

There was definitely something below them, crashing and thundering and rising like a roar. Regis’s hand squeezed one more time, a jolt of energy and power that would carry him toward the stairs of predawn, then let go, “I did not fight for you then, Noctis, and I will forever regret it, but I will fight for you now. So **go**. Run, and whatever you do-.”

“Don’t look back,” Noctis finished hoarsely, “I know. A king pushes onward always, accepting the consequences … and never looking back.”

“Exactly. Now,” at his back, his father’s armiger **sang** a battle song it had not had the strength to sing since before Noctis was born, since before Regis had been crowned, “ **run**.”

Noctis ran. Across the starlight, onto the narrow bridge of predawn. He ran as the Draconian roared in indignation at a bet cleverly won. He ran as his father’s armiger sang and Ardyn and his Oracle **laughed** and Ravus shouted truly vulgar insults only soldiers knew and Nyx’s warps punctured the void like cracks of thunder.

He ran and didn’t look back, even as the path under his feet turned to void and he plunged back into the abyss like falling into water too deep underground for light to reach. Except there **was** light. Luna’s light, Luna’s hands and healing magic, right where he’d left them and this time when her fingers caught against his, he clung and didn’t let go, didn’t stop fighting even as the exhaustion of **living** tore at his bones. He fought and rose and hung on with white knuckled hands to the chance at a **future**.

And, with a sudden snap and jolt of awareness, he **breathed**.

Steady hands rolled him over onto his side so he could hack and cough up liquid that was far too coppery to be water. He coughed until he thought his lungs would come up with it, then shivered in relief as familiar, blessed, longed for, **loved** magic seeped into his chest and eased his muscles. He lay there gasping, trying to get used to the sensation of gravity and reality once more. He could hear voices above his head, his brothers all crying and laughing and welcoming him back, and he could feel-.

Hands in his. Warm and small and steady, holding on tight even now. Noctis blinked his eyes open and looked up, and the first thing he saw was Luna —wonderfully alive Luna— smiling through her tears, “Welcome back, my Noctis.”

Noctis forced himself up onto one elbow with something that might have been a laugh, a cough, or a sob, “ **Luna**. You’re alive, you’re **here**.”

Her fingers squeezed his, reassuring and warm and so blessedly **alive** , “I am.” She swallowed back the emotion he could see in her eyes, and Noctis struggled to sit up despite the screaming soreness in his chest and torso —his wound from the blades of the Lucii, Luna must have healed it while he was … lost—. His brothers helped him sit up, then one of them gently nudged him further until he was leaning against Luna, his head tucked against her neck, their hands still clasped tight, “You came back to me,” she whispered above his head, “I thought … when your heart stopped for the second time, I thought we would not be able to resuscitate you. I thought we would lose you.”

Noctis exhaled softly and tucked his head further against her neck, “I got a little lost. But I had help getting back. Thank you for that.”

He felt her pause, like she was surprised, then her cheek rested on the top of his hair, “Somehow, I doubt I am the only reason they chose to help.”

Noctis chuckled, then blinked and squinted as light touched his face unexpectedly. He shifted his position slightly, enough to track the unexpected warmth to its source. The gaping hole in the wall of the throne room. The light streamed through it, warm against the cold stone and the cool of the previously night-chilled air. But the world had been covered in darkness earlier, before he sat on the throne, and it had been impossible to tell if it was night or day. But the light was **here** now, and it felt new. It felt like-.

“Iggy,” Prompto breathed as all of them turned their faces toward the light, “can you feel that?”

Ignis smiled from where he was crouched next to Noctis and Luna, “I can. It’s finally here.”

Noctis thought of racing along a bridge made of soft pinks and purples, of darkness and starlight and predawn and **light** , and then felt laughter bubble incredulously in his throat, “The dawn.” He exhaled shakily, tears burning his eyes more than the light did as he realized … “We did it, Luna, everyone. It’s over. We brought back the dawn.” He squeezed her fingers and pretended not to feel the relieved tears dripping slowly into his hair, “It’s **here**.” _And we get to see it._

_Together._


End file.
